Acer press event – Report
Last Friday we were invited to a press event held by Acer to present some of their new products. The event had one big focus, namely the word ‘Touch’. Acer unveiled their new line-up for his year going from tablets to notebooks, all-in-one pc’s and smartphones. Here’s our opinion of what Acer showed us and the plans the company has for the future.
Throughout the entire event there were two big messages that Acer really wanted to get across: firstly, they’ve had a few rough years behind them, the company went through management changes and a complete restructuring but they’re back and stronger than ever. The second one was that they had a complete make-over. They’ve done everything they could to transform into a younger brand for a younger audience, ‘a must have brand’.
Now it’s not like every brand doesn’t try and be the next must have brand, every brand should try to aim for that. Acer just wanted to show their commitment with their new future vision by showing an entire new line-up of future oriented touch products, and not just the traditional ones like smartphones and tablet’s, but also notebooks, all-in-one pc’s and even some cross type products. As you can probably tell, Acer believes that touch is the future. They want to be on the forefront of the touch movement from its traditional platforms to a much broader range of products.
The second big innovation point is the new look Acer is creating for itself. A look that shows both in the company’s advertising strategy, using a famous dj like Tiësto to appeal to a younger audience, and in the design of its new products. No more standard looks like boring black or grey notebooks. Acer is going for a nice, sleek and modern design with a lot of white and nice tight lines for every product type.
They’re elevating the design to a greater level in other ways as well. One example is their new notebook, the new Acer Aspire R7. The R7 is a hybrid notebook and tablet. It has a fully functional keyboard and mousepad but with a touchscreen instead of a normal one. This computer has one large hinge in the middle so it can be set at any angle you want. You can go from using the R7 like a regular laptop, to a touchscreen with a keyboard, to a tablet, just by turning the screen. They’ve designed the R7 in a way that you can use the keyboard with the touch functionality without losing space from the mousepad. When you move the screen forward, the mousepad is covered. It sounds really weird but this product is designed to ease people into world of touch and doing this in an elegant way. You almost have to see it and use it to realize how clever it really is.
Unfortunately not all the products were as convincing as the R7. One of the other products they showed was the Aspire P3, an 11.6 inch ultrabook in tablet form that comes with a bluetooth Chiclet-keyboard and a sleeve to put them in. The P3 is the perfect example of a product that looks great on paper, but when you actually see and hold it, raises some doubts. For one the tablet is really nice, but it just looked and felt a bit too big and heavy for you to carry around every day. It’d be fine if you have it at home and you just wanted to use the tablet function but it looked a bit clunky to use as your takeaway tablet. Then there’s the keyboard, which looked pretty nice for a little Bluetooth keyboard. A downside is that having keyboards like that built into the sleeve always raise questions of sturdiness over long term use. The keyboard is also really close to the screen, which might start to be a little uncomfortable after a while. This is hard to say without actually being able to use it for an extended period of time. All in all it’s nice to see Acer try something different, but the P3’s design definitely raised some concerns with me.
So not everything was as convincing, but the fact that Acer is trying to take steps towards the future, trying new things and trying to innovate. Especially in a climate where a lot of companies are afraid to take any risks because of the tough economic climate. If they really manage to keep all their promises, Acer could have a bright future ahead of themselves after this rough time. I’d say people definitely keep an eye on them.
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